The problem, as I noted in my report on the conference and the National Writers Union white paper distributed at the conference, is the erroneous assumption if some would-be licensee doesn’t know who holds certain rights to a work, that means that nobody is actually making the work available.

In reality, there are many works that are “out of print” in their original editions and formats, but which are being made available (most often by digital self-publication by authors) in decentralized ways that are not reflected in any of the centralized, publisher-centric bibliographic databases that would be used to search for rightsholdings.

These are not “hostages”, but works that have quietly moved to new online homes arranged by author/rightsholders where they are living happily and productively.